16 REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1911. 



the installations now in progress will be much more extensive and 

 effective than those with which the public has been acquainted in 

 the older buildings. Serving as a nucleus, these are being thoroughly 

 weeded out, much of the old material giving place to better speci- 

 mens, while the number of additions will be very great and their 

 character such as to markedly increase the interest and educational 

 value of the halls. 



As stated in the last report, the middle hall on the main floor was 

 opened to the public on March 17, 1910, the central part being occu- 

 pied by the paintings of the National Gallery of Art and the sides 

 and ends by a tentative but very attractive exhibition of ethnological 

 groups and objects. Since that time the provisional installation has 

 also been finished in the two northern ranges on the same floor, both 

 of which are likewise devoted to the subject of ethnology, and the 

 work of revision looking to a permanent arrangement has been ac- 

 tively carried on. Included in the latter were the initial steps toward 

 enlarging and elaborating 12 family lay-figure groups for which the 

 cases, measuring 8^ by 12 feet each, had been built. The series of 

 transparencies was remounted and, with the addition of a number of 

 new subjects, was arranged in steel frames in northern and western 

 windows. The large totem poles were effectively installed at the 

 southern end of the middle hall, and models of a Zuiii altar and of 

 an Iroquois village were constructed and placed. The other exhibi- 

 tions which were most rapidly approaching completion were those 

 relating to historic and prehistoric archeology, systematic geology, 

 mineralogy, and vertebrate and invertebrate paleontology. 



At the close of the year the following collections destined for the 

 new building were still on exhibition in the older buildings, namely, 

 the American mammals, the birds, marine invertebrates, and skele- 

 tons ; the gems, building stones, fossil plants, and a section of ethno- 

 logical objects. 



The work done upon the new building during last year comprised 

 the completion of the rotunda and the south or main approaches, 

 and the painting of the interior plastered walls and ironwork. It 

 is also to be noted that the improvement of the grounds about the 

 building, under the direction of the officer in charge of public build- 

 ings and grounds, was nearly finished. This included extensive 

 grading and sodding, the readjustment and rebuilding of certain 

 parts of the main roads, and the construction of driveways and walks 

 to the several entrances. 



